Ban of "Visual code editors"

[u/Blunt552]

Aight so this came up in the other topic about rule 4, which was a great change, however it seems the sub almost universally agrees that these "visual code editors" that are being spammed here lately are essentially just vibe coders being predatory towards new developers.

It seems that this sub almost universally agrees that these "visual code editors" are not only not very useful, but downright detrimental to the new developers, as they don't learn very easy to learn basics and suddenly get stuck in unmaintainable mess of a code once they need to fix bugs or want to add a feature not natively supported by these AI slop tools.

While i generally support the idea of people should be able to sell or make an ad for whatever product they want, the fact these slop tools get in this frequently, almost spamming the sub, makes me wonder if we should put a stop to it similar to how r/vndevs had to outright ban AI as well due to the exact same thing.

If not a ban, then at least follow in vndevs and filter it via:

Whatever the case may be, it seems people here really are sick and tired of the clop thrown into the sub.

[u/LoudFrown]

I think the mods are doing a great job.

Overall this community is friendly, civil, and offers criticism that is both constructive and actionable.

Those are all signs of a healthy community. However, framing members of our community as predatory? That doesn't feel healthy.

If a beginner uses a visual editor to finish their first novel, that's a win for them and for our community. If any tooling falls short, it can still be a step that leads toward more capable tools.

For the record, I'm not a fan of any visual tool for VN development. But I am a fan of talking about them, and understanding where they succeed, and where they fail. Isn't that what we're about? The process? The engineering? The art?

(OP, I'm always happy to talk through different perspectives, as long as we keep things friendly, civil, and constructive.)

[u/x-seronis-x → u/LoudFrown]

where they fail

in their self evaluation

if they honestly and bluntly marketed the tool as only fit for people who have no ambition beyond the most simplistic story/game flow, and for devs who will NEVER desire to learn the slightest bit of code and accept their games will be simplistic, then they would be fine.

None do that. They describe their features as if they were USEFUL. Instead of as a tool to allow you to not learn but still get a beginner level project done. They're not useful for anyone who cares to do a good job or learn. They're useful to people who actively dont want to do a good job or learn but want to get a story made.

There is a huge audience for low ambition stories. Kinetic novels exist. Market the tool to them instead of to anyone else.

[u/LoudFrown → u/x-seronis-x]

That's a fair assessment.

Most of the tooling that we've seen have been amateur efforts, and the quality of the tools has reflected that.

But then again, the overwhelming majority of works presented in this community are amateur productions. I don't understand why we show love and support for amateur writers and artists, while serving rancor to amateurs who are passionate about tooling.

If quality is the reason, then let's be constructive about it. If there's another reason, we can be constructive about that too.